Monday, August 26, 2013

Carolina Christmas Quilt and More

So much to write about since I last posted that it will take several posts to cover everything ;0)

But first, I must show you the 2 UFOs I finished in July (yes I know it's almost the end of August and I should be posting the August UFOs I am working on but they will come soon...first need to take care of July).

Remember the king size Carolina Christmas Quilt I was working on? Well it's done!!! Here are a few pics I took along the way...

Here are the stacks of blocks.

These are the poinsettia blocks sewn in groups of 4s.

This is the Christmas Star blocks sewn in groups of 4s.

This is the center of the quilt top pieced together.

Here is the finished quilt top on my long arm machine. I am quilting "Holly Berries" on it.

Here is as much of the quilt that I can fit into the pic...The center is exactly as Bonnie Hunter's pattern but I wanted it to fit my king size bed so I needed to change the border a bit to increase it to the size I needed without changing the integrity of the original pattern. I first added a 4" wide piano key border then an 8" poinsettia block border but instead of using gold in the block I replaced it with greens. Then finally another 4" piano key border. It finishes at 112" square.

Close up of the center-

Close up of part of the borders, and quilting. This was July UFO #1.

This is my July UFO #2. Some of you who have come by my studio over the past year and a half knew I wanted to make a "Design Wall" quilt and get rid of the flannel backed vinyl table cloths I was using as my design wall. Well here it is! The border is a paper pieced 7" block and the quilt finishes at 77 1/2" sq.

I used the left over fabrics from my pink Bali Sea Star quilt which is currently hanging in my quilt studio for my border blocks and I used white flannel for the center of the quilt. I quilted "Deb's Swirls" on it using a pale pink thread. Hopefully I will get the bindings on these soon.